How to track which channel brought each deal

You send messages, post on LinkedIn and go to the odd event, and a few deals are moving, but when one closes you cannot say what started it. To track which channel brought each deal, you give every deal a lead source the day it starts, from one short list, and you ask every buyer how they first heard of you. Without it, the deal closes months after the first visit, nobody remembers, and you spend next month's hours on the channel that feels busy instead of the one that brings proposals and orders.

Do these three things

About 1 hour 30 minutes today, then 2 minutes a deal and 30 minutes each Sunday. Judge a source after 4 Sundays, about 2,800 messages, and its won dollars only after it has brought 3 won deals.

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1. 1Today: add a Source drop-down with 10 channels and a Source detail box to every deal in your CRM, then fill both in for every deal and client you already have.
2. 2Every day: give every new deal its source the same day, from the channel you messaged them on, their form answer or their link tags, and ask "How did you first hear about us?" on every first call.
3. 3Every Sunday: count new deals, calls, proposals and won dollars by source in one row. After 4 Sundays, move the hours from any source with no calls booked to the source with the most proposals.

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1. Write one list of the lead sources your deals come from

A lead source is where a buyer first heard of you: a cold email, a LinkedIn post, a trade show, a client who told them. Write one list of about 10 sources today, and use only those words on every deal from now on.

The source answers one question: where did this buyer first hear of you? Use that rule every time, so the column means the same thing on every deal.

• If you contacted them first and they had not heard of you, the source is the channel you used: your cold email, your LinkedIn message or your cold call. You know it already, so you do not need to ask.
• If they came to you, the source is what they say put you on their radar: a LinkedIn post, a Google search, a person, an event. You find it out by asking (step 5).

Use the same words as your UTM naming sheet where they overlap, so your link tags and your deals match. Keep "Referral" apart from "Someone I already knew": a referral is a new person sent by a client or partner, and it needs its own row because it costs you almost no hours. Add "An AI tool like ChatGPT". In April 2026, G2 found that 51% of software buyers now start their research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, and those visits often look like "Direct" in your tools unless you track AI traffic. If buyers in your trade ask ChatGPT for a supplier, you want to see it.

Cold email
LinkedIn messages
LinkedIn posts
Google search
An AI tool like ChatGPT
Trade show or event: [which one]
[A channel you use: a community, a directory, a podcast]
Referral from a client or partner: [who]
Someone I already knew
Other: [say what]

Replace the line in square brackets with a channel you really use, such as Facebook groups, a podcast, a webinar or Clutch. Delete any line you will not use in the next month.

• Tool: Google Sheets or a note. Free.
• Time: 15 minutes.
• You will have: a list of about 10 lead sources, ending with "Other".
• It worked if: each of your last 10 conversations fits one line on the list without "Other".
• Common mistake: 30 or 40 options, one per post or per event. Nobody can pick from a list that long, so people choose the first line or "Other". Put the post, the event or the person's name in the detail box (step 2), not in the list.

2. Add a lead source field to every deal in your CRM

Put the source on the deal itself, not only on the person, because one deal can take months and involve three people. In your CRM, add three fields to Deals: Source (a drop-down of your list), Source detail and Link tags.

The published CRM guide sets up Attio's Free plan with one sales pipeline. Attio's Free plan allows up to 3 users, 50,000 records and up to 3 reports, which is enough for this guide. Add the fields there:

1. 1

   Open the attribute settings

   Open Deals. On the table or Pipeline board, click the ⋮ icon at the top right, then Manage attributes.

2. 2

   Add Source

   Click Create attribute. Name it "Source" and choose the type Select. Under Options, click + Create option once for each line of your list from step 1, in the same order.

3. 3

   Add Source detail

   Click Create attribute again. Name it "Source detail" and choose Text. This holds the post, the event, the person who referred them, or the buyer's own words.

4. 4

   Add Link tags

   Create one more Text attribute called "Link tags". It holds the UTM tags from a form or a booked call, such as "linkedin / social / always-on".

5. 5

   Show them on the board

   Add Source as a column in your Deals table, so a blank cell stands out.

Attio cannot make a field required on Deals; its help says custom required attributes are not supported there. So the check is yours: every evening, no deal without a Source (step 5).

If you use HubSpot's free CRM: keep HubSpot's own "Original Traffic Source". It comes from website visits and now includes "AI Referrals". But HubSpot's help says a deal takes it from its contacts, so it shows where a person came from, not what started the deal. So add a custom deal property "Source" with your list, and a text property "Source detail".

If you still track deals in a sheet: add a Source column, select it, and click Insert, then Dropdown. Paste your list as the options. Google Sheets then rejects anything not on the list. Move to a CRM once the signs in the CRM guide say so.

• Tool: Attio Free ($0), HubSpot's free CRM, or Google Sheets.
• Time: 15 minutes.
• You will have: three fields on every deal: Source, Source detail and Link tags.
• It worked if: a test deal shows all three, and the Source drop-down shows exactly the lines on your list.
• Common mistake: keeping the source only on the person. When a second person at the same company joins the deal, or the first one leaves, the deal loses its source. Put it on the deal.

3. Fill in the source for every deal and client you already have

Go through every open deal and every client today and give each one a Source. Use what you already know first, then ask the rest with one short message.

Work through it in this order:

1. Outbound deals. For anyone who replied to your outreach, the source is the channel of your first message. Your sent folder and your lead list show which one. Write the list or the date in Source detail.
2. Inbound deals. For anyone who came to you, read their first email or form. If they said how they found you, use it.
3. Clients and old deals. Your first clients often came from people you already knew. Use "Someone I already knew" and write where from in the detail box.
4. Everyone you still cannot place. Send them the message below today. It is one question, so it is easy to answer.

Hi [name], quick question for my notes, no need for a long answer: how did you first hear about [your company]? Was it a person, a post, a search, an event, or something else? Thanks, [your name]

ChatGPT or Claude can sort the answers. Paste the replies with your list from step 1, and ask it to pick one line for each and to mark any it is unsure about. Check each one it marked yourself.

• Tool: your CRM, your inbox and sent folder, and ChatGPT or Claude. Free.
• Time: 30 to 45 minutes, for up to about 50 deals and clients.
• You will have: a Source on every open deal and every client.
• It worked if: no open or won deal has a blank Source, and fewer than 1 in 10 say "Other".
• Common mistake: writing "Cold email" on everything because most of your work is cold email. A guess in the column is worse than a blank: it tells you to do more of the wrong thing.

4. Save the source with every enquiry: a form question and hidden UTM fields

Every enquiry from your website or a booked call should arrive with two things: the buyer's own answer to "Where did you hear about us?" and the UTM tags of the link they clicked. Set both up today, so you copy them onto the deal instead of guessing later.

The question. If you followed conversion tracking, your quote or enquiry form already asks "Where did you hear about us?". If not, add it now, as the last field before Send. Use the lines from step 1 as quick options, and give "Other" a short text box. Keep it optional: buyers who are forced to answer type anything to get past it. This is self-reported attribution, and for a small B2B company it is often the most honest source you have.

The hidden fields. A hidden field is part of the form that the buyer never sees. It picks up the tags from the address of the page they landed on. Use a free Tally form if your site builder's form cannot do this:

1. 1

   Add the fields

   In the Tally editor, type /hidden to add a Hidden fields block. Add three fields named exactly utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign.

2. 2

   Embed it on your quote page

   Embed the form on your quote or contact page with Tally's embed code. The embed passes the page's own tags to hidden fields with the same names.

3. 3

   Point your tagged links at that page

   The tags only reach the form if the buyer lands on the page with the form. So point the tagged links in your posts, signature and messages at the quote page or a landing page with the form, not the home page.

4. 4

   Test it

   Open one of your tagged links in a private window, send a test enquiry, and check the three values in Tally's Submissions tab.

The booking link. Many B2B deals start with a booked call, not a form. Calendly saves UTM tags for each booking, on every plan. Add tags to the booking link you put in each channel, for example ?utm_source=cold-email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=outreach in your emails and ?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=outreach in LinkedIn messages. To see them, open the Calendar page, click Filter, and choose Tracking IDs. Build the links from your UTM sheet, so the words match.

Then, every day, when an enquiry or a booking comes in, create its deal and copy two things onto it: the answer into Source detail, and the tags into Link tags. Set Source from the answer. At about 3 new conversations a day from 100 personal messages, that is about 5 minutes a day.

• Tool: Tally Free (unlimited forms and submissions; Pro is $24 a month and not needed), Calendly, and your CRM.
• Time: 40 minutes today, then about 1 minute per enquiry.
• You will have: every enquiry and booking arriving with the buyer's answer and the link tags.
• It worked if: a test enquiry from a tagged link shows all three tags in Tally, and a test booking shows its tag under Tracking IDs.
• Common mistake: a tagged link that lands on the home page while the form sits on another page. The tags never reach the form, and the enquiry shows no tags at all.

5. Ask "How did you first hear about us?" on every first call

On every first call, ask how they first heard of you, write their exact words on the deal, and set the Source the same day. It takes one minute, and it catches what no tool sees: the post they read, the colleague who mentioned you, the answer ChatGPT gave.

Ask in the first two minutes of the discovery call, before you talk about your offer, while it is easy to answer:

Before we start: what made you decide to get in touch, and how did you first hear about us?
(If the answer is vague) Was there a person, a post or a moment that put us on your radar?

This matters more than it seems. In 6sense's 2025 study of about 4,000 B2B buyers, buyers made first contact about 61% of the way through their buying journey, and 95% of the time the winner was already on their first shortlist. Most of what put you on that list happened before any form or tag could see it.

When the answer and the tags disagree, the buyer's answer goes in Source. Leave the tags as they are in Link tags. Never overwrite one with the other. A buyer who says "I read your LinkedIn posts for a month, then searched your name" shows up in the tags as Google search, and in Google Search Console as a search for your name, but LinkedIn posts started the deal.

One source per deal, set once. When a second person joins the deal, a buyer comes to your trade show stand after a cold email, or the deal goes quiet and comes back from your nurture emails, add a line to Source detail. Do not change Source. This is first-touch attribution: the simplest kind, and the right one while you have a handful of deals.

Every evening, filter your Deals table for an empty Source. Fill each one before you stop for the day. At 100 messages a day, about 3 people a day reply and become new deals, so this is a 2-minute job if you do it daily and an afternoon if you leave it for a month.

• Tool: your CRM, and your call notes.
• Time: 1 minute on each call, and 2 minutes a deal for the notes.
• You will have: a Source on every deal from the day it starts.
• It worked if: each evening, 0 deals have no Source, and the buyer's words are in the detail box of every deal that came to you.
• Common mistake: filling in the source when the deal is won. By then the buyer may not remember, and you will not either. Deals that take 3 months need their source on day one.

6. Count deals and won dollars by source every Sunday, and move your hours

Every Sunday, count your deals by source: new deals, calls booked, proposals sent, won deals and won dollars. After 4 Sundays, stop any source that booked no calls and give its hours to the source with the most proposals.

Count. In Attio, click Reports in the sidebar, open a dashboard, click + Add report, and choose Insight. Set Data source to Deals, Metric to Count, and Grouped by to Source. Pick Bar. Make a second Insight report with Metric set to your deal value, aggregated by Sum, and a filter for deals in the Won stage. Insight reports are on every plan, and these two use two of your three free reports. For calls booked and proposals sent, filter the Pipeline board by Source and count the deals that reached each stage, including Lost deals that got that far. If you work in a sheet, a pivot table on the Source column gives the same counts.

Add the hours. Take each channel's hours for the week from your CAC sheet. A source that takes 4 hours a day is not free because it costs no dollars.

Week | Source | New deals | Calls booked | Proposals sent | Won deals | Won $ | Hours

The rule, after 4 Sundays (about 2,800 messages at 100 a day):

1. Stop any source with 0 calls booked. It had its full share of hours and booked nothing.
2. Give those hours to the source with the most proposals per 10 hours, among sources with at least 3 proposals. Fewer than 3 is too few to compare.
3. Judge won dollars by source only after a source has brought 3 won deals. Until then, one $9,000 order can make a weak channel look like the best one. This is the same rule as the CAC guide.
4. Keep everything else running at the same hours, and judge again after the next 4 Sundays.

If the winning source has a platform limit, spread the hours instead of cutting them. LinkedIn allows only about 100 connection requests a week, so put the extra hours into first messages to people you are already connected with and into cold email. If "Other" is more than 1 in 10 deals, read those detail boxes and add the missing source to your list.

Once a month, bring the four rows to your monthly marketing review, and use the won deals to set next month's marketing budget. If a source brings deals that stall after the demo, fix the demo before you cut the source. Every won deal is someone to ask for a testimonial, a case study and an introduction for a referral. If one source brings deals that never pass the proposal stage, check them against your ideal customer profile before you send it more hours. If all sources slow down at once, get growth moving again with the same sheet.

• Tool: Attio Insight reports (free), or a Google Sheet; your CAC sheet for the hours.
• Time: 30 minutes every Sunday.
• You will have: one row per source per week, and a written decision every 4 Sundays.
• It worked if: every won deal this week has a Source, and after 4 Sundays you can say which source booked the most calls and proposals per 10 hours.
• Common mistake: judging by the one deal that closed, or by visits and deal count. A source with 30 deals and no proposals loses to one with 6 deals and 3 proposals.

Your deal source checklist: today, then every day

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Step 1 · Write one list of lead sources

• Write one list of about 10 lead sources.

Step 2 · Add a lead source field to every deal

• Add Source, Source detail and Link tags to Deals in your CRM.

Step 3 · Fill in the source for every deal and client

• Fill in the source for every deal you can place from your records.
• Ask everyone you cannot place how they first heard of you.

Step 4 · Save the source with every enquiry

• Add the form question and hidden UTM fields, and point tagged links at the page with the form.
• Tag your booking link for each channel.
• Every dayCopy each new enquiry's answer and tags onto its deal.

Step 5 · Ask how they first heard of you on every first call

• Every dayAsk how they first heard of you on every first call, and set Source the same day.
• Every dayCheck that no deal is left without a Source before you stop for the day.

Step 6 · Count deals and won dollars by source

• Every SundayCount new deals, calls, proposals and won dollars by source in one row.
• After 2,800 messagesStop sources with no calls booked and move their hours to the source with the most proposals.

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